


Can't Buy My Thrill

by Highsmith (quimtessence)



Category: The Virgin Suicides (1999)
Genre: Atmospheric, Death, Gen, Missing Scene, Pre-Canon, Yuletide Madness 2015, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 21:43:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5471747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quimtessence/pseuds/Highsmith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lux has a voice, if only in her own head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Can't Buy My Thrill

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tekuates](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tekuates/gifts).



> For me, both the book and the film adaptation have always been about the sisters' narratives being appropriated by the boys through their obsession with them. I aimed for creepiness and a reclaiming as the tellers of their own story. After reading your letter, **tekuates** , this missing scene jumped into my head almost fully-formed. I hope it's an enjoyable Treat! The title is inspired by the band Steely Dan (their song "Do It Again", featured in the film, is originally from their 1972 album _Can't Buy a Thrill_ ). My thanks go to my beta, H.

Crinkly leaves carpeted their front lawn and shone red in the weak, late-autumn sun, rustling in the crisp November wind, until the wind, too, vanished into stillness. 

Lux watched the motionless morning sky—the still sky of suburbia—with a lit cigarette dangling from her fingers. The smoke wafted lazily upwards. A car's tires screeched on a distant street. Lux hated everything in the world for simply existing, and the world hated her right back. 

_Where are you going, honey?_

Every day for seven days now, Lux had been asking herself that question, like a niggling thought in the back of her mind sharp as a needle prickling her between the eyes from the inside. She forgot, for the seventh day in a row, to answer herself. 

She was thirteen— _then_ —and in possession of a shiny nugget of knowledge: she would never be given the chance to narrate to herself her own life's story into adulthood. 

Adulthood—that seemingly unattainable Holy Grail—was a distant destination; a kingdom to which she was denied access: unreachable, removed, unimaginable. 

It was bad enough she and her sisters didn't have voices of their own—never have, never will. But to be deprived of having a voice in her own head? Such was life, someone more enlightened than herself would say. Lux took a slow drag from her cigarette and contemplated the secrecy of having a voice of her own no one would ever be able to hear. 

Last month she had been walking home with Cecilia in tow only for the sound of boyish, eager voices to reach her from behind a thick-trunked tree. She had heard the word _mysterious_ being thrown around about her and her sisters, which was perhaps when the seed of a thought had taken root, waiting to grow sturdy and show itself later. Now she fully believed the boys on their street were watching them, casually, sneaking glances, sharing stories—having voices. 

The ashy remains of her cigarette fell apart on the twitch of a finger, the butt lingering on a knuckle. 

She could scream. Lux Lisbon could scream. They would hear her then. 

_Where are you going, honey?_

The wind picked up from nothing to something fierce. Mary called her name from below, or perhaps the wind was calling her name from above. Regardless, Lux made her way down, down, down into the kitchen for a glass of warm milk to drive away the chill of the roof. 

She made a mental note to skip tomorrow's question as she had, between one faint moment and the next, inadvertently asked herself twice in the same day. With her luck tomorrow would have been the day she would decide to answer herself. 

Such was life.


End file.
